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Awards & Book News

A new PEN America report documents a surge in “educational intimidation” bills. Publishers Weekly has coverage.

Salon speaks with former NFLer Michael Oher about The Blind Side controversy and his new book, When Your Back’s Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and Lessons Learned Through a Lifetime of Adversity (Avery). 

Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children by Emily Midkiff (Univ. Pr. of Mississippi) wins the 2023 Science Fiction Research Association book award; the SFRA’s other awards are announced as well.

New Title Best Sellers

Links for the week: NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers | NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers | USA Today Best-Selling Books

Fiction

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 20 by Gege Akutami (VIZ Media) takes No. 3 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Lion & Lamb by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski (Little, Brown) roars in at No. 4 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake (Tor) takes over No. 10 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

Tides of Fire by James Rollins (Morrow) burns up No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman (Atria) ticks to No. 15 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list.

Nonfiction

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills (Amber-Allen: Penguin), originally published in 1997, reaches No. 9 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Tucker by Chadwick Moore (All Seasons) finds No. 12 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Seller list, though some booksellers report receiving bulk orders.

Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe by Jeezy (HarperCollins Leadership) soars to No. 13 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Best-Seller list.

Be Better Than Your BS: How Radical Acceptance Empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion by Risha Grant (Hay House Business) achieves No. 15 on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Reviews

NYT reviews Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (Hogarth): “It’s an engaging read, but whip-smart Mia is an overbearing and prolix narrator”; Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang (Liveright: Norton; LJ starred review): “Unlike Daughter of the Dragon the film, Daughter of the Dragon the book is clearly intended as a form of reclamation and subversion”; and The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner (Atria): “None of the above is to suggest that this book is formulaic. In fact, it’s slyly, delectably subversive.”

Washington Post reviews Better Than Sane: Tales from a Dangling Girl by Alison Rose (Nonpareil: David R. Godine): “This is the rare sort of memoir that invites you into a world beneath our own, a secret commonwealth made possible by Rose’s spiky genius and irresistible magnetism”; and two new biographies of Althea Gibson: Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson by Ashley Brown (Oxford Univ.; LJ starred review) and Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Sally H. Jacobs (St. Martin’s).

LA Times reviews The Deadline: Essays by Jill Lepore (Liveright: Norton): “Taken in sequentially, Lepore’s essays constitute a dizzying, entertaining and urgent survey course on contemporary American life.”

NPR reviews Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search To Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail by Andrea Lankford (Hachette): “As full of hope and humanity as it is packed with pain, grief, danger, and tension.”

LitHub selects “five book reviews you need to read this week.”

Briefly Noted

Tor.com shares “Five Fast-Paced African Urban Fantasy Books.”

CrimeReads identifies the best debut novels of August and crime fiction with powerful women characters.

LitHub has “A Reading List of Comeback Stories.”

BookRiot finds “the best quietly sad, contemplative books for when you’re trying to feel a little something.”

Publishers Weekly has a preview of new and forthcoming devotionals, which it calls an enduring category in publishing, and a preview of general religion and spirituality books due out in September.

NYT’s “Inside the Best-Seller List” covers The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Riverhead; LJ starred review).

Salon interviews Alice Hoffman, author of The Invisible Hour (Atria).

Vulture talks to rapper Jeezy about his new self-help book, Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe (HarperCollins Leadership).

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Kwan discusses Crazy Rich Asians and his just-announced fifth novel, Lies and Weddings (Doubleday), due out in May 2024.

Washington Post profiles Farah Karim-Cooper, author of The Great White Bard: How To Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race (Viking).

Publishers Weekly has interviews with Janet Kellogg Ray, author of The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World (Eerdmans), and Donniel Hartman, author of Who Are the Jews—and Who Can We Become? (Jewish Publication Society).

Kirkus talks to Molly McGhee, author of the debut novel Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind (Astra House). There’s also a profile of Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of I’m Not Done with You Yet (Berkley).

The Rumpus interviews John Cotter about hearing loss and his memoir Losing Music (Milkweed).

Jennifer Weiner, The Breakaway (Atria), takes Elle’s literary survey.

R.J. Palacio, author of White Bird: A Wonder Story (Knopf), answers NYT’s “By the Book” questionnaire.

The Atlantic has an essay by Stephen King about the revelation that his writing is being used to coach artificial intelligence.

Authors on Air

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews Justin Tinsley, author of It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him (Abrams).

Shelf Awareness has the lineup for C-SPAN 2’s Book TV this weekend.

Deadline shares the trailer for The Marsh King’s Daughter, a film adaptation of the novel by Karen Dionne. They also have the trailer for Netflix’s Cigarette Girl, based on the novel by Ratih Kumala, tr. by Annie Tucker.

Vanity Fair has details about the upcoming gay romance film All of Us Strangers, based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada.

Prachi Gupta discusses her new book, They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us (Crown), on PBS Canvas.

Kathryn Bromwich reads from her novel At the Edge of the Woods (Two Dollar Radio) on LitHub’s Damian Barr’s Literary Salon podcast, while the Keen On podcast interviews D.J. Taylor, author of Orwell: The New Life (Pegasus), and Tom Kemp, author of Containing Big Tech: How To Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy (Fast Company Pr.).

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